What These Medical Journals Don’t Reveal: Top Doctors’ Ties to Industry

[Shep]

From the New York Times:

 

What These Medical Journals Don’t Reveal: Top Doctors’ Ties to Industry

 

December 8, 2018

 

I found this paragraph particularly interesting:

 

Quote

Concerns about the influence of drug companies on medical research have persisted for decades. Senator Estes Kefauver held hearings on the issue in 1959, and there was another surge of concern in the 2000s after a series of scandals in which prominent doctors failed to reveal their industry relationships.

 

 

That link for "in which prominent doctors"  goes to this article from 2008, which many of us are already familiar with:

 

Top Psychiatrist Didn’t Report Drug Makers’ Pay

 

But as yesterday's article revealed: 

 

Quote

 

Despite these changes, the system for disclosing conflicts remains fragmented and weakly enforced. Medical journals and professional societies have a variety of guidelines about what types of relationships must be reported, often leaving it up to the researcher to decide what is relevant. There are few repercussions — beyond a correction — for those who fail to follow the rules.

 

 

 

 

And ends on this depressing note:

 

Quote

Dr. Bernard Lo, the chairman of the 2009 Institute of Medicine panel, said journals have only begun to confront some of the systemic flaws. “They’re certainly not out in front trying to be trailblazers, let me just say it that way,” he said. “The fact that it hasn’t been done means that nobody has it on their priority list.”

 

From the comments section: 

 

 

 

Is it any wonder that Dr. Peter Dr. Gøtzsche is no longer with the Cochrane Collaboration? 

 

A number of doctors made comments in yesterday's article, so that's a good sign that doctors are waking up to the corruption of their own profession. Whether or not it will do any good, I'm not so sure.  As the article states, "Concerns about the influence of drug companies on medical research have persisted for decades. Senator Estes Kefauver held hearings on the issue in 1959. . .." 

 

And nearly 60 years later, here we are. 

 

Edited December 9, 2018 by Shep
fixed typo

[FarmGirlWorks]

Ugh... thanks @Shep  Reminds me why I want to rid this corporate poison from my body.

[Shep]

FGW, I like your term "corporate poison". Perfect term for it. 

[Linus]

On 12/10/2018 at 1:18 PM, Shep said:

FGW, I like your term "corporate poison". Perfect term for it. 

 

Don't know if I am allowed to talk politics, but this is a very important point, If we want things to change, we will have to vote out politicians who take money from corporations.

 

Until this happens, expect nothing to change. The drug industry works for profits, not for patients, that is why they lie and they will continue to do this unless someone steps up.

 

I hope Bernie Sanders runs, wins the nomination and then the presidency.

 

 

[Shep]

21 hours ago, Linus said:

Don't know if I am allowed to talk politics, but this is a very important point, If we want things to change, we will have to vote out politicians who take money from corporations.

 

Until this happens, expect nothing to change. The drug industry works for profits, not for patients, that is why they lie and they will continue to do this unless someone steps up.

 

Yes, this is very true. 

 

Have you come across this great book by Robert Whitaker and Lisa Cosgrove about this kind of corruption?

 

Psychiatry Under the Influence: Institutional Corruption, Social Injury, and Prescriptions for Reform

 

To quote Sinclair Lewis, "It's difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on his not understanding it."

[Linus]

2 hours ago, Shep said:

 

To quote Sinclair Lewis, "It's difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on his not understanding it."

 

Great quote and very true, unfortunetaly this kind of corruption, because that is what is, has taken on endemic proportions.

 

I am familiar with mr. Withaker, haven't heard of the book though. There is also Peter Gotzsche, who called the pharmaceutical industry "organized crime".

 

“106,000 people die (annually, in US hospitals) as a result of CORRECTLY prescribed medicines…Overuse of a drug or inappropriate use of a drug would not fall under the category of ‘correctly’ prescribed. Therefore, people who die after ‘overuse’ or ‘inappropriate use’ would be IN ADDITION TO the 106,000 (these numbers do not count out-patients killed by prescription drugs!) and would fall into another or other categories.”

Dr Barbara Stanfield, MD, MPH.

 

Houston, we have a problem

[FarmGirlWorks]

Agree @Linus that we need to vote out members who take corporate, esp pharmaceutical for me, "donations." The problem I see is that everybody in congress does it. Even Saint Bernie although not very much. I was happy to see though, according to this summary, that Kamala Harris and Tom Udall -- two of my favs -- didn't take much. Nor did Bernie. Elizabeth Warren... yikes.

 

https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?ind=H04&cycle=2018&recipdetail=A&sortorder=U

 

Thanks for the book suggestion, @Shep. I have been skimming "Medication Madness: The Role of Psychiatric Drugs in Cases of Violence, Suicide, and Crime" by P Breggin.

[Linus]

8 hours ago, FarmGirlWorks said:

Agree @Linus that we need to vote out members who take corporate, esp pharmaceutical for me, "donations." The problem I see is that everybody in congress does it. Even Saint Bernie although not very much. I was happy to see though, according to this summary, that Kamala Harris and Tom Udall -- two of my favs -- didn't take much. Nor did Bernie. Elizabeth Warren... yikes.

 

The Intercept: '2020 Democratic Contenders Are Making the “Cheap Gesture” of Swearing Off Corporate PAC Money, but Big Checks Are Still Flying'

 

"A better path to limiting the influence of big money is for senators to simply develop a small donor base that supplants large donors of any sort, Ferguson said. “Let them say they won’t take money over, you know, a particular limit — $500, $750, whatever you like,” he suggested. Page agreed. “What we really need from candidates is reliance on small donations, if possible, as was done by Bernie Sanders and (to a lesser extent) Barack Obama,” he wrote to us."

 

"In that regard, Warren and Sanders deserve an honorable mention, as they are the only senators in this group of six ( Sens. Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren, Maria Cantwell, and Bernie Sanders) who got the majority of their campaign funding from small individual contributors since 2013. Nobody else comes close."

 

So Sanders and Warren are the best choice with regard to corporate money. But if Kamala Harris is your favorite, fine by me

[FarmGirlWorks]

Interesting @Linus -- love The Intercept. There is sooooo much info out there about donations. I am still aggravated at Cory Booker for making some hot, principled stand about some issue (who remembers what now after the sh!tshow of USA 2018) and then almost immediately took a large pharma donation. I want to like him but that pissed me off... I agree that Bernie, even at his age, would be best. I think Warren, who I like in general, would be too divisive a figure. Idk.

[Linus]

18 hours ago, FarmGirlWorks said:

I think Warren, who I like in general, would be too divisive a figure

 

Funny, but I also think this.